Knowledge Devotion

[Asteron]

One of my players has Knowledge Devotion. In an upcoming fight, I am going to have a vampire using disguise to look like a normal example of his race. This player doesn't have the ability to beat it's disguise check. How should I handle the Knowledge check? Should I have the player make the check against the type that she thinks the enemy to be and then deduct the bonuses from their attack and damage because it isn't the right type?

[Deaxsa]

One of my players has Knowledge Devotion. In an upcoming fight, I am going to have a vampire using disguise to look like a normal example of his race. This player doesn't have the ability to beat it's disguise check. How should I handle the Knowledge check? Should I have the player make the check against the type that she thinks the enemy to be and then deduct the bonuses from their attack and damage because it isn't the right type?

Don't deduct anything. Just don't add anything to damage (or rather, remove the bonus damage secretly). once he is aware of the fact that it's undead, that's when you can let him roll again. but only if he actually knows what it is. (or maybe roll knowledge vs. disguise to see if he can identify the type/use k.devotion?) the point is, he'll figure out something is fishy when he has to hit a higher AC, (which makes sense in-character), and he'll feel good for stripping a layer of defense from the vampire. At least, that's what i'd do.

[Asteron]

Don't deduct anything. Just don't add anything to damage (or rather, remove the bonus damage secretly). once he is aware of the fact that it's undead, that's when you can let him roll again. but only if he actually knows what it is. (or maybe roll knowledge vs. disguise to see if he can identify the type/use k.devotion?) the point is, he'll figure out something is fishy when he has to hit a higher AC, (which makes sense in-character), and he'll feel good for stripping a layer of defense from the vampire. At least, that's what i'd do.

That's what I meant for deduct. It would all be in my head.

Thanks.

[animewatcha]

IIRC, by raw, the knowledge devotion check is made by whatever type the mob is, no matter the disguise. This doesn't mean that player knows what type the guy is. Just that 'for some reason' this guy is getting hit 'more often' and 'a little harder' than normal ( call it knowledge enemy instincts kicking in or something ).

[OldTrees1]

Have them do a knowledge local check then mentally adjust for the difference between their knowledge local and their knowledge religion.

[Asteron]

IIRC, by raw, the knowledge devotion check is made by whatever type the mob is, no matter the disguise. This doesn't mean that player knows what type the guy is. Just that 'for some reason' this guy is getting hit 'more often' and 'a little harder' than normal ( call it knowledge enemy instincts kicking in or something ).

Obviously I'm working around RAW here. If you think the creature is a normal human, you aren't going to fight it the same way you would a vampire. The whole point is that you know how to hit this creature where it hurts. If you don't know where it hurts, you can't do that, can you?

[BowStreetRunner]

First, the player in question would receive a spot check to possibly recognize the disguise. The vampire's disguise check would be at a -2 (different race) for attempting to hide his vampiric nature. If the player succeeds on his spot check, he then makes his knowledge check against the vampire's type (undead) normally.

If the player fails his spot check however, he would not recognize the vampire's nature. In this case you may allow him to make a knowledge check against the creature's apparent type (humanoid) but then deduct those bonuses from his actual results afterward without telling him. Or you can simply deny him the knowledge check, saving yourself the extra calculation, although this would tip the player off that something is going on.

Note that if there is another undead involved in the combat and the player makes a knowledge check against that undead, the same bonuses would be used against the vampire. You could choose to deny these bonuses if the player fails his spot check (although RAW it does not state you have to), but if he succeeds either initially or later you still would use the same value for all undead.

Strictly speaking, nothing in the wording of Knowledge Devotion specifically requires the character to successfully identify the target creature. So the DM generally has to decide whether to allow or deny the bonus in a situation such as this.

[HammeredWharf]

Remember than a player with Knowledge: Religion should get a check if the vampire uses any of its abilities. No matter how good your disguise is, turning into mist is a bit of a giveaway. On a less extreme note, level and ability drain are both vampiric abilities and someone with the appropriate knowledge skill could figure out that this thing looks human, but is not. Additionally, when a vampire gets wounded, it won't bleed. The player should either notice that immediately or get a Spot check.

[Spuddles]

Remember than a player with Knowledge: Religion should get a check if the vampire uses any of its abilities. No matter how good your disguise is, turning into mist is a bit of a giveaway. On a less extreme note, level and ability drain are both vampiric abilities and someone with the appropriate knowledge skill could figure out that this thing looks human, but is not. Additionally, when a vampire gets wounded, it won't bleed. The player should either notice that immediately or get a Spot check.

or the vampire took precautions against that sort of stuff, lik eusing magic, and lots of things cause level drain or turn into mist. level 3 wizards can turn into mist.

instead of making up a bunch of ad hoc rules, just resolve it with spot vs. disguise. if the player beats the disguise check, then the PC notices lack of blood, fangs, etc.

[Curmudgeon]

Unless there's an overwhelming rationale for deviating from the RAW, I suggest it's best to simply follow the rules. Knowledge checks are made based on creature type. However, there's nothing in the rules which states that you're required to tell the player what specific check they're making. You should know their character's skill modifiers, so just ask them to roll a d20 and do the sums yourself. Keep in mind the following:

• It's possible for their Knowledge check result to provide Knowledge Devotion bonuses but still be insufficient to identify the creature.
• You can (and probably should) adjust the DC for creature identification if the situation is unfavorable to them making the check. That will affect just the creature ID; Knowledge Devotion works off a fixed table.
• "A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster." This identification doesn't require you to automatically spout out the creature's type and name; you can decide what particular bit of information to provide.

[Grayson01]

Obviously I'm working around RAW here. If you think the creature is a normal human, you aren't going to fight it the same way you would a vampire. The whole point is that you know how to hit this creature where it hurts. If you don't know where it hurts, you can't do that, can you?

But by RAW you don't have to know what it is to get the bonuses, same with Favored Enemy. Most Rangers don't even have ranks in the Knowledge skill to know what their favored enemy is or even that it is one. They should still get a Knowledge Religion check even if they don't see through the fake. Plus they should get one anyway to see the tell tale signs of an undead. RAW is really on the side of the Player on this one, logically I see where you are coming from.

[animewatcha]

Exactly. The PC can wonder why his 'undead hunting instincts' are going off more in this instance versus a humanoid. We can't always explain why our bodies react the way they do to something. Maybe it can provide a reason for a 'spot check versus disguise'.

[VoxRationis]

Baloney. An ability based around erudite knowledge, keyed off Intelligence, rather than Wisdom, as is usual per instinctive abilities, is not going to function unconsciously. Favored enemy can be a little muddy, as it's not explicit about how it works. However, Knowledge Devotion is a case of "Oh, this is an X, here are ways I've studied for fighting them."
They should get Spot checks, maybe with a +2 bonus for Knowledge synergy (they know what to look for/pick up on vital clues more readily due to said clues matching things they've read about), and probably a series of Spot checks as more and more of the creature's abilities become apparent (not to mention the whole "doesn't bleed" thing, though that depends on the vampire myth you're using), but they shouldn't be able to use Knowledge Devotion on a thing that it's not and apply damage appropriately.

[dextercorvia]

Baloney back at you. Knowledge Devotion does not even require that you successfully identify the creature for it to work. You get +'s for rolling a static DC, which may very well be below the DC necessary to id the opponent.

[Grayson01]

Not to mention it's a Divine gifted bonus based of how much you know about a certain creature type. Divine gifts don't have to make logical sense.

[OldTrees1]

Whenever you fight a creature, you can make a Knowledge check based on its type, as described on page 78 of the Player's Handbook, provided that you have at least one rank in the appropriate Knowledge skill.

You can make only one Knowledge check per creature type per combat. If you fight creatures of multiple types during the same combat, you can make one Knowledge check per type, thereby possibly gaining different bonuses against different opponents.

When combat starts, a character with Knowledge Devotion is entitled to make a Knowledge Devotion check per creature type. This represents their knowledge about creature types not their knowledge about disguised unnamed enemy #4252.

These bonuses are tied to creature types. Since you wish to deviate from RAW, I suggest having the player make the multiple knowledge devotion checks and then inform them that the apparently humanoid creature they are fighting does not seem to be fighting like a humanoid. Maybe they are not a humanoid? [Immediate non-action check to get a hint to determine actual type]. The player can then guess what the actual creature type is. If they are correct, then they get to use their bonus vs that creature type against that creature.

[VoxRationis]

Not to mention it's a Divine gifted bonus based of how much you know about a certain creature type.

Excusing your confusion of "off" and "of," if it's based on how much you know, you shouldn't be able to get the bonus if you're ignorant. Ignorant how? Like not knowing that the creature in question is of that particular type. You know, the type that the skill roll itself is dependent on?
And while yes, you can get the feat by exchanging the Knowledge domain, as a "divine gift," you can get it normally and the ability is explicitly extraordinary and therefore not a magical divine fiat rewarding you for doing so well at Trivial Pursuit the other night.
DexterCorvia's logic is akin to that which demands that drowning heals because it doesn't say it only shifts you to 0 hit points if you're already above that.

[Sliver]

IMO, I agree with those saying that if you don't see through the disguise, you don't know the type and thus you can't benefit from a bonus that is granted according to how much you know about that type.

You don't need to recognize a specific breed of lizardfolk to know how to better fight the scaled ones, but you would need to recognize that you are facing a lizard to use that information. It if wears makeup and a fake mustache/bosom and you are convinced that it's totally a gentleman/lady? You aren't going to use your expert knowledge of lizard skinning and your lizard fan-club membership is likely revoked.

[dextercorvia]

I think what this boils down to is a fundamental difference between player knowledge and character knowledge. The pro-houserule camp are, quite frankly, metagaming. They are saying that the player must correctly guess the knowledge skill they need to roll, in order for the character to benefit. Unless you think the character has to actually roll the dice this is silly.

Instead think of it this way. If your character is knowledgeable about the undead (Trained in Know: Religion) and they are fighting a disguised undead creature, they will still recognize (through rolling a K:R check) that the creature they are fighting is behaving like an undead in some way. They don't have to see through the disguise, but they might notice that he seems to blanch at holy symbols nearby (or insert other fluff reasoning for the Know. Devotion Bonus). He doesn't have to know what kind of creature it is, just by observing its behavior and being knowledgeable about creature behavior is what gives him the bonus.

[VoxRationis]

By doing that, they would realize that the creature in question is an undead, thus obviating the point of this whole discussion. It's hardly metagaming for a DM to rule that using a wholly irrelevant skill that is nonetheless related to the relevant skill won't work. If your rogue tries using Search instead of Spot to try to find someone hiding, resulting in the rogue poring, nose to the ground, over the room, the DM is well within his rights (though if the rogue is a new player, he should probably point out the distinction) to rule that the rogue gets ambushed.

[dextercorvia]

By doing that, they would realize that the creature in question is an undead,

Nothing in Knowledge devotion says the character realizes the type of creature they are observing. It says you make a roll based on the type of the creature. The DM is within his rights to not tell the player to make a certain roll, but to make it for him and inform him of the result, if he feels that it will give away the disguise.

The K:D roll can be thought of as creatures that behave X way are more vulnerable to tactic Y, and therefore you get a minor bonus.

[Asteron]

This is one of those issues where I feel that RAW has failed. Knowledge Devotion should be tied to identifying the creature, or it completely deviates from the fluff of the feat. You can't use your knowledge of a creature to fight it more effectively if you don't know what that creature is! I'd even relent on this if you could reasonably identify the creatures type. However, if you can't do that, I see no reason why your lack of knowledge should help you fight it better.

That being said, most builds that are going to be taking advantage of this feat are going to have an easy time identifying a particular creatures type (I don't think that there is a check for that, but I'd probably say the identify check -5 to get it's type right.)

I think I'm going to allow a spot check to pierce the initial disguise, then several progressively easier checks as it becomes apparent that it isn't behaving like the creature that it looked like.

[Trasilor]

Are you giving too much power to Disguise?

It says you can disguise your Race not you Type. Humans are race. Humanoid is their type. Vampires type are Undead. Disguising yourself as a humanoid should not be possible (RAW).

[dextercorvia]

Are you giving too much power to Disguise?

It says you can disguise your Race not you Type. Humans are race. Humanoid is their type. Vampires type are Undead. Disguising yourself as a humanoid should not be possible (RAW).

An excellent point. There are plenty of Undead (Humans) running around. He can disguise himself as one of them, but not Humanoid (Human) even with an Epic Disguise check.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'd do something similar to what I do with a ranger's FE bonus when I don't want the party to know a foe is something different than it appears:

Roll the right knowledge check in secret and covertly apply the correct bonus instead of the one for which he rolled. Maybe you'll luck out and it's the same value. If not, he'll inevitably notice he's hitting when he should have missed or vice-versa. That's ok, he'll suspect something's up, but the oddity will still be too hard to figure out till long after the combat's over. Player: "Why is it I seem to be hitting on a different d20 roll than I'd have expected to based on other people's rolls and bonuses?" DM: "There's a reason. You may not know why, but there is a reason." And say no more.

[VoxRationis]

Are you giving too much power to Disguise?

It says you can disguise your Race not you Type. Humans are race. Humanoid is their type. Vampires type are Undead. Disguising yourself as a humanoid should not be possible (RAW).

What's with you two? There are no rules for cutlery use per RAW; does that mean that people don't use cutlery? Alter Self and Polymorph give Disguise bonuses (i.e., function as a high-functioning Disguise skill roll for the purposes of appearance), and you can use those to appear as something of another type. The rules are assumed to rely on a degree of adjudication and common-sense—that's why you have DMs in the first place.
The SRD says that vampires and vampire spawn appear "just as they did in life." It does say they have "feral" and "hardened" looks, whatever those are, but that's not impossible to get around, and is certainly easier to hide than disguising a dwarf as an elf, which is possible per the literal reading of the Disguise skill. (Doing so would require compensating for a difference in a foot or more of difference in height, a foot or more of difference in breadth, a vastly different skull structure...)
"Troll in the Playground" indeed... No wonder everyone thinks pure rogue sucks, if some of its most potent tools are subject to ridiculously limited readings like this.

[dextercorvia]

It is no more silly than requiring the Character to know the type of the creature before rolling the check that would let them identify the creature.

[Deophaun]

If you do decide to not apply the Knowledge Devotion bonus, do not be sneaky about it. As soon as the character hits, he's going to know something is wrong. Heck, if the character misses within the range of his KD bonus, he'll probably know something is wrong. So after that initial contact, provided he doesn't miss beyond his KD bonus, if I wanted a compromise scenario, I'd give him a knowledge check (which one is a secret; let him roll a d20 and then add the relevant modifier behind the scenes), and if that check would be high enough to identify the creature, I'd say his character had figured out the general nature of the target. But regardless of that roll, he would know he wasn't up against a humanoid.

[VoxRationis]

It is no more silly than requiring the Character to know the type of the creature before rolling the check that would let them identify the creature.

You don't ask that of the character. You ask the player "Roll Knowledge X," and you trust to their sportsmanship as a player not for them to metagame and abuse the knowledge of what type they have to know about. If that's a problem, you can roll secretly for them, having previously written down their various Knowledge bonuses, in the same way that some people secretly write down the Spot and Search bonuses of their players.

[Deophaun]

You don't ask that of the character. You ask the player "Roll Knowledge X," and you trust to their sportsmanship as a player not for them to metagame and abuse the knowledge of what type they have to know about.

That's actually a trap, and not something nice to do to players. After all, if their characters figure it out the next round, how do you know they didn't metagame that knowledge? How do they know? Fruit of the poisonous tree and all that.